How much money South Africans spend on data every month

Web browser Opera and digital reading non-profit, Worldreader, have released a new report detailing how much the average South African spends on data each month and what the most popular data bundles are.

The study is based on the results of over 50,000 male and female respondents between the ages of 14 to 44 across South Africa, Nigeria, and Kenya.

“Data must fall” has been a highly debated topic in the country over the last few months, with the issue coming to a head in the past weeks with new regulationsbeing instituted as well as an investigation by MyBroadbandabout MTN’s “disappearing data”.

However various groups have also warned about government’s interference in the telecommunications sector, with fears that excessive governmental control could lead to the industry producing anotherEskom or South African Airways.

The report found that women in South Africa typically spend more on mobile data than men each month.

Data bundles between 100MB – 1GB are the most popular for both men and women, with popularity steadily declining on the highest data packages.

However more South Africans opt to buy data bundles over 10GB than those who buy 5GB – 10GB packages.

The majority of South Africans use their phone more than eight times a day, with music being the most popular usage for both men and women.

More than 14% of men attribute their high usage to reading about sports, and a similar amount of women (11%) use their phones for entertainment and gossip news.

General searches and information tend to dominate search history (24%), followed closely by social media networks (17%), music (17%) and news (12%).